From RotoVegas to Welly

Or, From Rotorua to Wellington

 RotoVegas!

Hot, stinky, bubbling mud pot

Many Kiwis call Rotorua, the very first developed tourist site in New Zealand, "RotoVegas". It's pretty touristy, and apparently has been so for over a century and a half. Even Bernard Shaw visited, in 1934. But it's touristy for a reason: it is amazing.
After leaving Whangamata, we drove south to Rororua. We stayed with Rachel Cogbill's inlaws' inlaws: Libby's brother Tom Powell and his partner Moira Ellam. They were fantastic and generous hosts--and we'd never met them before! (Thank you Rachel, Lars, and Libby!)

Hells Gate

We visited Hells Gate, one of the major geothermal locations. (Most of them are called spas. The whole area of the town and lake--a giant former volcanic caldera--smells of sulphur, but the individual spas STINK.)

Kiwi sense of humor

From a TripAdvisor review:  "Hell's Gate was named by George Bernard Shaw and he certainly got it dead on. It was like the entrance to hell, a post-apocalypitc landscape with bubbling and steaming mud pools, mud volcanoes, cooking pools that could cook a pig in two hours...!"

The whole area was full of steam

 And, From the Hell's Gate's web site:

       "Geothermal - feel the earth's raw power--
       "New Zealand, as a country is located on the “Ring of Fire” where the earth is always in a state of upheaval. This is no more evident than in Rotorua on New Zealand's volcanic plateau where geothermal activity is pronounced including erupting hot water, steaming fumaroles, mud pools and hot geothermal springs.
          "THE BEAST--
           "Hells Gate Geothermal Park is set in 50 acres with a large variety of thermal features. Walk past steaming fumeroles and hot pools of boiling MUD so violent they are unnerving. Follow the footsteps of ancient Maori Warriors through the swirling clouds of steam, past the hot pool where the Maori Princess “Hurutini” lost her life, see the violent geothermal activity of the Inferno and the Kakahi Falls, the largest hot waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere.  Here, warriors would bathe in the sulphurous waters to  heal their wounds after battle and remove the “tapu” (sacredness) of war."

A mini volcano! This is a mud volcano--maybe 6 ft. tall.
It erupts with mud about every month or so.  Shucks--we missed it.

Big steaming pool

Alas, we didn't get to do a spa or a mud bath. Maybe next time.

Our wonderful hosts and the redwood forest walk

 Tom and Moira live across a ridge from Rotorua, on Lake Okareka. We had great food, great conversations, and gracious hospitality.
To top it all, Tom is a geologist working with thermal energy generation.
NZ gets roughly 10% of its energy from geothermal. Think he and Mike had anything to talk about?

Lovely view from Tom and Moira's porch over Lake Okareka

They live a short drive from a Redwood forest.

Hunh? Yep, a redwood forest. It's a regional park, and the plantings were imported from California and started about 1905.
So should we consider these redwoods as invasives?  (Whatever...)

Baby redwoods

Tom took us on a beautiful hike on his favorite trails thru the forest, with lookouts over the town and lake.

Fascinating blue spring in Redwood Forest--
colors from chemicals in hot spring that is its source

View from the Redwood trail over Rotorua, with a random steaming geyser

Tom Powell, Mike and Loring

Then, Wellington

After a very brief stint back in Hamilton, just time for Mike to teach, LS to do choir practice, and for us to wash a mountain of dirty laundry from Whangamata and Rotorua, we headed out for our long-awaited trip to the South Island--thanks to a two-week university vacation. We drove south all the way down the North Island and spent the night before going on the ferry at a backpacker in Wellington-- the Cambridge Hotel.

What's a Backpacker?

What's a 'backpacker"? It's basically a hostel, on steroids, or a hotel on a diet.  They come in all sizes, from just a few beds or rooms to beds for over 100. They usually have a mix of single rooms, doubles, and dorms; and if you pay a bit extra for your room you get "en suite"--i.e., with your own motel-style bathroom. Otherwise, you go down the hall--or several halls--or outside--to the big group bathrooms. They also have a large kitchen/dining area, where visitors store their food and cook their meals and socialize. We've now stayed in all kinds: big ones that were good, big ones that were OK but not great, and all kinds of little ones. We've met and chatted with all kinds of travelers, except for the time Loring stayed at a lovely little house/backpacker in the tiny town of Glenhope, where she was the only guest in the whole place.

Wellington, In the Rain

Wellington harbor

Yeah, the drought is over. Big time. From the time we started driving south from Hamilton, in Wellington, going across the Strait on the ferry, and all the time we were driving around and visiting on the South Island for two weeks, it rained. Every Day. It rained. Except for the last day, when Loring was driving back to the ferry to go home.
Wellington, as far as we could tell in the rain, is a lovely city. It is nestled around a spectacular deep-water harbor at the southern tip of the North Island.

Harbor again

Boat sheds belonging to the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club

Urban planning, Kiwi style--poster by the harbor

Wow--what a manhole cover!

Handsome houses by the harbor

A real highlight of our visit was the Te Papa Museum--New Zealand's beloved national museum, and really quite extraordinary. It was a visit of several hours for us, including visiting a Maori village and Marae, plus a fantastic exhibit of NZ jade carvings; seeing a giant squid, and seeing a nice presentation on the pre-metal South Pacific explorations and migrations.

And here's our Wellington 'backpacker', the Cambridge Hotel. In its heyday, it must have been quite grand ...

The Cambridge Hotel backpacker

Last Wellington shot:  NZ has a long way to go re residential energy efficiency, but they're 'having a go':

For the NEXT blog, finally:  on to the South Island!

Cheers to all--
Loring and Michael